This invention relates generally to faucet fountains adapted for attachment to faucets for drinking and having fanciful objects or characters with human-like or animal-like features for entertaining children. More particularly the invention relates to an improved construction of such faucet fountains with fanciful characters thereon, enabling more economical manufacture by permitting the manufacturer to readily change the decorative aspects of the depicted fanciful characters or objects without changing the more expensive working components of the faucet fountain.
The vagaries of fad and fashion in children's toys demands constant change to keep up with the current craze. Television, toy companies and publishing industries continually introduce new characters. An industry called character licensing has grown up, in which various and sundry unassociated products are embellished with the features and persona of the latest character which is in vogue. Faucet fountains have been proposed for attachment to faucets or aerators connected to the faucets, which permit normal usage of the faucet, and which also permit alternate use by manual manipulation of a closure member to obtain a flow of drinking water from a spout. Such a fountain has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,934,597 issued Jun. 19, 1990 to William C. Crutcher, said patent being incorporated herein by reference. This fountain comprised a tubular body with a front wall portion and a rear wall portion, the tubular body having an inlet end adapted to frictionally fit over a faucet and having an outlet end, a closure member attached to the rear wall portion adjacent the outlet end and of sufficient size to cover the outlet end, and a fountain conduit extending upwardly and outwardly from a hole defined in the front wall portion near the outlet end of the tubular body to a terminating spout end, the closure member being arranged to be moved to cover the outlet end to direct water from the faucet through the spout end. The subject patent preferably empoyed an integral plastic body and closure member with a living hinge. The type of faucet fountain mold described above preferably a high volume injection mold, is very expensive. If it is desired to embellish the exterior of the faucet fountain with fanciful character features, a new mold would be required each time a new character is needed.
On the other hand, there are inexpensive molding techniques available for molding sculptures of character faces, enabling complex exterior surfaces on hollow shapes. On technique uses rotational casting of plastic using inexpensive molds, introducing the plastic into the mold interior and rotating it while the plastic cures. The exterior surface of the hollow plastic casting may duplicate a fanciful character figure, face or scene, which is enhanced by painting features onto the exterior surface. Such techniques and plastics are not suitable for manufacturing a faucet fountain, but very adaptable to changing from one fanciful object or character face to the next.
Accordingly one object of the present invention is to provide a faucet fountain embellished with a fanciful object, such as a fanciful character face, which is easy to change to a new character face.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improvement in a faucet fountain which will appeal to children.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a combination toy and faucet fountain which is economical to produce.